


In My Own Skin

by AndreaLyn



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-14
Updated: 2012-07-14
Packaged: 2017-11-09 23:41:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/459799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndreaLyn/pseuds/AndreaLyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eames has been having a little technical difficulty when it comes to switching between forgeries.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In My Own Skin

The first time it happens, he’s alone.   
  
This is his dreamspace, this fuzzy and lucid dream in which he’s controlled by Yusuf’s compounds. The world is grey at the edges and tinged with the slightest rain of remorse, as if his emotions are tempering the environment around him. He can’t imagine why, though, and he searches through his fog-laden world to find a reason. Once, on a hot day in Kenya, Eames fucked Yusuf over a desk as the cat lapped up all the milk. Ever since, he’s had no trouble at all getting whatever he needs.   
  
Through the fog, Eames can dimly make out two figures. They’re facing each other on a stone bench, seemingly in a lover’s stare. His hand is on her cheek tenderly and she leans forward, smiling with innocent adoration.   
  
Arthur and Ariadne, in their own little maze. They’re not real, Eames knows. He also knows why his subconscious is making him look at this. It’s what he believes, honestly believes, to be true. They are together. They must be. They have stolen kisses here and there, which Eames has stopped having with Arthur ages ago – a whole dream and a lifetime back.    
  
Suddenly, without warning, without  _control_ , Eames feels the world shifting. The fog clears and Arthur turns his head in his direction. He opens his mouth to speak, but what comes out is a feminine, “Arthur!” and when he takes a look in the mirrors set beside him, Eames sees himself for what his reflection shows – a lithe woman, blue eyes, wavy blonde hair, prettier than he’d ever imagine.    
  
Pretty enough to imagine Arthur might want her.   
  
“Ah,” he murmurs. “Tricky little subconscious, aren’t we?” The feminine voice is still just as low, as if she’s been smoking a pack a day. He runs a hand over white linens covering a female’s body and watches in the distance as Arthur begins to ignore Ariadne.   
  
_Tricky, tricky subconscious_ .    
  
Eames is perfectly aware how little this speaks of his current sanity, but as Arthur crosses the dream and cups Eames’ cheek, he can’t find it in himself to care what issues this implies.   
  
There is no music because Eames has gone in alone and so when he wakes – alone – he is perfectly and utterly aware that there are issues.   
  
**   
  
The fifth time shouldn’t have happened.    
  
“Look, Dom, I know that you want to take a walk for old time’s sake,” he’s explaining in the living room of the man’s house, watching his children playing outside the window. “But it’s not exactly stable in my mind.”   
  
Cobb looks at him with great suspicion and there are probably a dozen ideas ready to trickle off his tongue. Cobb, their fearless leader, would know it all. He knows every issue and probably thinks he knows every solution, but this is a problem unique to forgers. How on earth is he supposed to work when he can’t even control his own shifts? He’s been dreaming it more lately, unable to stay in control, a female copy of his self roaming around dreams searching for Arthur, as if to give him an option.   
  
“I’ve seen worse things than whatever is up there, Eames,” had been Cobb’s assurance. There’s only so much denial that can occur and so Eames hauls out the briefcase and allows Cobb into his mind.   
  
The fog is there and mercifully, Ariadne isn’t present. Eames isn’t sure he’s ready to suffer through that indignity. The problem is, though, that Arthur  _is_  there, waiting with a rose in hand.    
  
“Now, Dom,” Eames says, breathing harder than before as he feels himself lose lucid control, “don’t say I didn’t warn you.”   
  
“I was wondering when you were going to come back,” says his projection of Arthur as Eames slips and shifts, clad in an emerald green dress – which just  _happens_  to be Arthur’s favourite colour. It would be.    
  
Cobb watches the scenario and Eames thinks that it’s his own fault for not leaving when he could, taking a gun and pulling the trigger. He says not a word to Eames the whole of the dream as they tour the landscape. Eames can’t shift out of the form and Arthur won’t leave them alone.    
  
As they pry the hook-ups from their wrists, Cobb finally turns to Eames. “Does he know?”   
  
“Why on earth would I ever talk about my dysfunction aloud?” Eames replies simply. “Did you?”   
  
Conversation over, it seems. And he seems to have lost his invitation to the Cobb household for a number of weeks in one hearty slam of the door.   
  
**   
  
The tenth, most humiliating, time does not actually involve Arthur at first.   
  
It involves Ariadne.   
  
He doesn’t bother to try and explain when she crosses the dream to find him, shouting his name through the fog. Somewhere in this maze, Arthur had been here and has gone into hiding, leaving Eames to contemplate how thoroughly he despises whatever deep lingering feelings he has for the man. Eames is perched on one of the park’s benches, legs of a female form crossed and hands above the knee. “Here, darling,” he pipes up.   
  
“But you’re…”   
  
“Yes.”   
  
“Did you mean for this to…”   
  
“No,” Eames replies, drawing out the word as he taps his fingers in a steady rhythm against his knee. “It’s become something of a chronic little problem of mine. Every time Arthur turns up in a dream, I can’t control my shift and I slide straight to…well, this,” he finishes, gesturing to the pert breasts and the thin torso, the soft curves and the body that is everything but him. He looks up at her and tries to find some kind of dignity. “Don’t worry. It’s just a dream. I’m not going to intrude.”   
  
“Intrude on what?” Ariadne asks and now Eames feels just as lost as she looks.    
  
“You? And Arthur?”   
  
She doesn’t have time to reply because they’re joined by a third presence. This tenth, most humiliating time, has just grown worse. “You started without me,” Arthur complains to Ariadne, barely glancing at Eames, which is just perfect. He tries to sink back into the bench, willing the fog to cover him so he won’t have to explain.    
  
Of course, his body gives him away by flickering, switching back for a moment and calling Arthur’s attention to him.   
  
“…Eames?”   
  
“He can’t seem to help it,” Ariadne explains, sympathetic and oh, does Eames hate her just a little more for being so bloody soothing and kind about it. “He can’t control it. He thinks we’re together.”   
  
“Yes, thank you, still right here,” he replies, words crisp and slightly bitter – like a good dessert really. “And I can hear every word.”   
  
“Eames?” Arthur asks again, incredulous as he turns and, like all the dream-Arthurs, bears down on Eames, cupping his cheek and spreading warm fingers against soft skin, as if exploring for the solution to a problem that hasn’t been finished writing. “Has this happened before?”   
  
“No, and if I weren’t so certain it would keep happening, I’d say it won’t happen again,” he says, staring right up into those damn warm eyes of Arthur’s. He reminds himself that Ariadne is right there and he will not be the sort of bastard who steals men away from lovely young girls. He closes his eyes, lashes brushing against his cheek and he feels his heart pounding through his chest, blood rushing lower in what is this foreign body’s traitorous attempt to be turned on. “Tenth time should be the charm.”   
  
“He thinks we’re together,” Ariadne says again, sounding blunter than before. “Arthur…!”   
  
“I know!” Arthur cuts her off. “I know,” he adds, softer. “Eames,” he says quietly, leaning in until all Eames can feel is hot breath against his cheek. “Eames, I’m not with Ariadne. We’re good friends and yes, maybe sometimes, we enjoy a little peck here and there. But we’re not together.”   
  
“My boyfriend would be kinda pissed,” Ariadne pipes up.   
  
Eames opens his eyes and looks at Arthur, some of the confusion ebbing away slowly. “You’re not together?”   
  
He feels control come back to him slowly and his whole body shifts back immediately. He feels better for it, like he hasn’t fallen prey to a disease that’s been running rampant through his heart, making him stomach-sick and lovesick at once. He looks up at Arthur, who is grinning like an idiot right back at him.    
  
“What?” Eames demands.   
  
“Nothing,” Arthur replies. “I just can’t help being slightly amused by your little problem. Because I really don’t think it’s all that bad. I wouldn’t mind if she came back to play sometime.” He cups Eames’ cheek slightly harder, as if to get his attention. “But Eames, I don’t want to see her until I’ve had my very wicked way with you. You got that?”   
  
Funny. That said, it’s like Eames has got an anchor back to exactly who he ought to be. “Yes, sir,” he agrees in a rough tone, chalking up what began as humiliating into something that he actually doesn’t quite mind.    
  
Now, if only the  _projection_  of her would stop eyeing Ariadne in that way. Maybe then he could settle his mind’s maelstrom of unease.


End file.
